Harmon said that no matter what speech he wrote, it would be woefully inadequate to express how humbled, grateful and appreciative he feels.

“That said, I promise all of you, with all of my heart, that I will use every effort and work hard to prove worthy,” he said.

Harmon, of Richmond, graduated from Chicago-Kent College of Law in 1993 and served as a special public defender in Lake County and a general practitioner. In 1995, he became a McHenry County assistant public defender and remained with the Public Defender’s Office for the majority of his career, eventually becoming a senior felony supervising attorney.

He recently left the office to work for Gummerson, Rausch, Wand, Lee, Wombacher in Woodstock, primarily handling civil matters.

Nader, of McHenry, is a Loyola Law School graduate and a former McHenry County assistant state’s attorney who worked for the office from 1993 to 1998. She also was an associate attorney with The Waggoner Law Firm.

In 2003, she opened her own office, where she practiced family law almost exclusively.

Nader thanked the judges for their support.

“I will not disappoint you,” she said, and thanked her husband and children. “They had to deal with a mother who went back to school and read torts instead of nursery rhymes,” she said.